creating your document

Please create your job in Quark, InDesign, or PageMaker. If you use any other program (for example, Microsoft Publisher or Word), you will need to submit your job as a PDF file optimized for printing. If you submit your job as a PDF, we will not be able to make corrections unless you also submit the original layout file.

Vector illustrations should be created in Illustrator or Freehand; line art scans or photographs should be prepared in Photoshop.

image resolution and file formats

Please provide us with high resolution scans, or ask us to do the scanning and include a low-resolution FPO (for position only) scan in your electronic file to show cropping and placement.

High resolution scans should be grayscale or CMYK, at 300 dot-per-inch resolution at 100% of the size used in a document. (For example, an image that is enlarged 200% will need to be saved at 600 dots per inch.) Images should be saved only in TIFF or EPS file formats. Line art should be scanned at 800-1200 dots per inch and saved as bitmap TIFF files.

It is important to check the resolution of digital images. For example, an 8” x 10” image at 72 dots per inch from a digital camera will scale down to only 1.9” x 2.4” at 300 dots per inch.

adjusting scans

Highlight areas of your scan should not be less than two percent, or they will show as white paper. Dark areas can safely print between 92 and 97 percent. Large areas of 100% coverage may look blotchy and too dark. As a general rule of thumb, a correctly balanced picture will appear to be slightly light on your monitor.

Our direct-to-plate software automatically compensates for dot gain, so please do not lighten your images to compensate for dot gain.

fonts

Please submit all the fonts used with your job – even common faces such as Helvetica and Times. (Over the years these and other fonts have been upgraded without their names being changed.) Note that TrueType fonts consist of one file each; PostScript fonts consist of two files – a printer font and a screen font. Don’t forget to include the fonts used in your layout file as well as any fonts placed within EPS graphics.

file collection

In order to successfully output your project, we will need all the layout files, fonts and graphics used to create it. Quark version 5, PageMaker, and InDesign have automated file collection features. You will still have to collect fonts manually for older versions of Quark.

submitting jobs

Please include an unstuffed PDF file along with the source files so we can review your job before it goes into production.

Please do not email jobs larger than 3MB; instead, click here to use our ftp site. Please follow up with a phone call so we know that your files are ready.